Ambient Home Health Monitoring Sensors- Guest Post by Shalani Andria

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Frost & Sullivan has been so kind as to contribute with a guest post for our Connected Living blog. Shalani Andria, Transformational Health Industry Analyst, shares with us her expert views on the Digital Health market in the APAC region. Enjoy the reading!

Ambient sensors for home health monitoring have the potential to help better manage chronically ill patients and provide synergistic effects for in-patient care. According to Frost & Sullivan research, increasing rates of chronic cardiac diseases, diabetes and obesity in Asia-Pacific (APAC) will reach 6.5%, 7.5% and 8.5%, respectively, by 2020. Management of such diseases, especially the prevention of adverse events, will require the use of ambient sensors in the home. Although home health monitoring technologies do not completely eliminate hospital visits, they do remarkably increase productivity throughout the healthcare delivery system. With a growing number of patients and limited resources devoted to healthcare costs, this technology is also able to facilitate the goal of limiting financial burdens on the existing system. Healthcare providers in APAC are forming consortiums and investing in pilots to generate data and build a funding model that best serves the unique health systems in the region. Once a sustainable model is identified, there will be even further expansion.

From the perspective of APAC, home health monitoring is a complete ecosystem that enables the supervision of vital signs within patients’ homes. Data are collected through monitoring devices, clinical wearables, sensors, or mHealth apps, and sent to physicians through an integrated platform. Patients with high dependency on the healthcare system — such as the elderly and the chronically ill population — can now easily be monitored outside of the hospital.

In the past few years, there has already been a tremendous increase in the use of sensors in the APAC home health monitoring market. Traditionally, bulky devices were especially intrusive for the continuous monitoring required for Elderly Care or Chronic Disease Management. Thanks to sensor technologies, patients are made more comfortable with the use of miniaturized devices that can retrieve and seamlessly transmit data to either mobile apps or the caregiver’s system. Without being restricted by devices, people can now be monitored in real time while leading normal lives.

With an ability to detect minute changes in vital readings, sensors are also highly attractive for healthcare providers. One of the many challenges faced by providers is to obtain quality data from monitoring devices. This technology can assist critical clinical decisions that are made based on the analysis of captured data. For this reason the quality of data is a crucial factor, especially in monitoring patients with life threatening conditions.

As this technology continues to be integrated into healthcare systems, institutions must adapt. One issue that must be addressed concerns regulatory oversight. Over the next five years, a combination of technological advances and regulatory overhaul across the region will enable innovative care delivery models and drive the demand for home monitoring solutions. However, to develop an efficient market requires well designed regulations that manage the quality of care and payment models. The emergence of sustainable regulations, alongside the development of a functioning large-scale platform, will play a significant role in the future healthcare systems throughout APAC.